Thursday 11 July 2013

Summer holiday diaries : Not quite beach weather !


Well, the plan for yesterday was a day at the beach but after two blazing hot sunny days, the sky was grey, it was windy and decidedly chilly. We decided to go for it anyway and headed off on a 5km walk. (That's about 3 miles, probably about 4 miles in total.) In the morning, we'd taken the dogs for a walk again, which is why Pierre zonked out in the pushchair ! 


It must have been a special tide because I've never seen the sea come in so far. There was no beach at all in places so we sat watching the waves for a while and waiting to see if we'd get splashed !


Some brave (or stupid?) holidaymakers were swimming though - must be mad !


We joined in with a "treasures of the sea" workshop at the tourist office. I was very impressed to see that the girls were able to name and explain every single item on the discovery table, including ray and shark egg cases (mermaid's purses), the spongy egg cases from something I can't remember (whelks, I think?), mussels and razor shells.


Pierre wandered off to the book corner.


Then we looked at an interesting exhibition about the camps that the asylum seekers live in near Dunkirk just before trying to get across the Channel to England by any means possible.


Discovering old fashioned toys and games seems to be a recurrent theme this week - after the old fashioned scooters and stilts at the park on Monday, we came across a selection of traditional games just next to the beach. This table football game was great fun - you move the little wooden player with magnets under the table !


This must be the ancestor of air hockey !


Pierre had great fun with the wooden maze game - you pull on the strings on the four corners to lift each side and make the marble roll in the direction you want - until he got a bit close and smacked himself in the forehead with it ! Oops !


This one was a bit manic - you pick up your coloured balls on your stick and deposit them on top of the hanging balls without making them fall off. They ending up bouncing all over the place which caused a great deal of hilarity !


Pierre got to play in the sand again, which seems to be his favourite thing ever at the moment !


Juliette had a go on the slides and climbing frames (as did Sophie, but she wouldn't let me post a photo !)



To finish off, we went for a walk in the Sculpture Garden of the Modern Art Museum. 


We looked for frog princes in amongst the water lilies but didn't find any !


We did find some concrete sheep to play on though !


Umm Sophie, I think you might be round the wrong way !


Eat your heart out Milton Keynes, who needs concrete cows ?!


I wonder if this is what Kate Bush had in mind when she sang Running Up That Hill !

Phew, another fun-packed day. Sophie said that we've done so much in three days that she feels like we've been on holiday for weeks already ! We've decided to have a quieter indoor day tomorrow with baking and crafting on the cards.



Other blogposts you may be interested in :

Summer holiday diaries : Dog Days

Summer holiday diaries : Having a lark in the park


9 comments:

  1. Looks like you had a good day despite the weather being not so good...Those concrete sheep are fab...So strange! lol

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  2. What a fantastic day, despite the weather. For once we can boast a better weather. Bless your little man falling asleep in the pushchair.

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  3. who needs sun when you can have fun like this...

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  4. I cannot believe those people swimming in the sea!!

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    1. Two days later, on a blazing hot day, we walked past the lifeguard station and they had the water tempertaure as 16° so goodness knows how cold the water was on that day ! Sophie put one toe in and said it was icy cold !

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  5. this looks like an immense day honey!! in fact it sounds absolutely perfect to me!

    Thanks for linking up with #MagicMoments

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  6. Looks a fun filled day love the sheep x

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  7. Looks like you had a great day despite the weather - I'm loving those concrete sheep :)

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